Day 10:

Stormy and quiet.  An uncommon in-between day.  The perfect day to make a leap.

I lit the candles and spent the day curled up on the couch with books, paper and a pen (OK, my IPad too), watching the giant wet snowflakes as they tumbled occasionally from the sky.

It's getting a little too close to the end of my rare 14 days, which brings up all sorts of crazy thoughts. About things like enthusiasm and inspiration and joy and happiness.  All wonderfully demonstrative words that appear on my rainbow-colored word list I use to write stuff to convince people to part with their money.  One esteemed colleague calls it "words women like."

Well, I like the list. But today I'm thinking about how we get these things in the first place, what it takes to keep them, and what it takes to find them again when they get misplaced. It seems that so much of it comes from unexpected places when you're not really looking. And there is the proof that I neglected to take philosophy in college.

So I traded the pen and big thoughts for the simpler task of sipping wine and making the girl-requested Leap Day dinner, an enthusiastic and inspiring affair filled with the joy of macaroni and cheese, a summer strawberry & kiwi salad, and Henry Weinhard's Orange & Cream Soda for a special bonus. What could be happier than that? It all depends on the conversation that ensues at the table.

P.S.  Just after I posted last night's story, I went to the back door to call Lily in, and there she was in the dark, in the rain, in the middle of the ferns and snowdrops, tormenting a little mouse.  The occasion elicited a screech from Ali and a facebook post from Emily announcing that her cat killed a mouse and was tossing it up in the air and catching it with her mouth and it was weird and gross. I found it hilarious and simply divine to see the next generation experiencing the same joy that we did.